Classic Italian Cream Cake goes low carb and keto! This rich layer cake is a truly special dessert recipe, and it’s worth the time and effort.
Some recipes make me do the happy dance. And this keto Italian Cream Cake is one of those recipes. I really am quite excited to bring this one to you today as it is seriously fantastic. I rank it up there among my best cake recipes, easily.
So here’s the deal. As most of you know, I’ve been hard at work on a keto dessert cookbook. Easy Keto Desserts will be coming out on July 3rd and I am so excited about that one. Because let’s be honest, that’s where my heart lies. Creating healthy low carb desserts just makes me happy. And apparently it makes a lot of you happy too. But the recipes in that book are, obviously, on the “easier” side of things. They are delicious treats you can whip up without a whole lot of effort and without getting out every pan and whisk in your kitchen. They are still creative and innovative, but they aren’t overly complicated.
And while I know many of you will appreciate that, I actually have a bit of a thing for more complicated desserts – the kind that really do have you getting out multiple bowls and beaters and whisks. The sort that has every cupboard open and every spare surface of kitchen counter covered. When I have the time for them, I really love those recipes…just burrowing into my kitchen and losing myself in the creation of something delicious.
I’d never heard of Italian Cream Cake before I moved to the US. It’s just not a Canadian thing…and with good reason. It’s actually not really Italian at all, but instead a kind of vintage southern cake recipe. But regardless of origins, it’s an astonishingly good cake and makes for a perfect low carb makeover. I realized it was perfect as a recipe to showcase Bob’s Red Mill products, because I would not only be using almond flour, but also their unsweetened shredded coconut and a little coconut flour as well. I always rely on their low carb flours and meals, as I know they will produce excellent results. And they came through for me as always!
How to Make Keto Italian Cream Cake
One thing I would do differently for this cake, however, is use smaller 8 inch pans. At the time of creation, I only had 9 inch round pans. They worked just fine but the layers weren’t as high and impressive looking as I would have liked – the cake was rather wide and squat-looking…but the amazing flavour more than made up for it. If you choose to use 8 inch pans, the baking time will be longer, of course. My guess is anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes longer. This is a big, rich cake, so whether you bake it in 9 inch pans or 8 inch pans, it serves about 16 people.
So here’s to easy desserts and here’s to complicated desserts. They both have a place in my heart!
Want more amazing keto cake recipes? Check out my new Keto Desserts page. All recipes under 7g TOTAL carbs!
Love to bake? You need this cookbook!
Low Carb Italian Cream Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup Swerve Sweetener
- 4 large eggs, room temperature, separated
- 1/2 cup heavy cream, room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups almond flour
- 1/2 cup shredded coconut
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
- 1/4 cup coconut flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup powdered Swerve Sweetener
- 1 tsp vanilla , extract
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, room temperature
Garnish
- 2 tbsp shredded coconut, lightly toasted
- 2 tbsp chopped pecans, lightly toasted
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 325F and grease two 8 inch or 9 inch round cake pans very well (the 8 inch pans will take a little longer to cook but the layers will be higher and I think they will look better). Line the pans with parchment paper and grease the paper.
- In a large bowl, beat the butter with the sweetener until well combined. Beat in the egg yolks one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Beat in the heavy cream and vanilla extract.
- In another bowl, whisk together the almond flour, shredded coconut, chopped pecans, coconut flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat into the butter mixture until just combined.
- In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they hold stiff peaks. Gently fold into the cake batter.
- Divide the batter evenly among the prepared pans and spread to the edges. Bake 35 to 45 minutes (or longer, depending on your pans), until the cakes are golden on the edges and firm to the touch in the middle.
- Remove and let cool completely in the pans, then flip out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Remove the parchment from the layers if it comes out with them.
Frosting
- In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Beat in the sweetener and vanilla extract until well combined.
- Slowly add the heavy whipping cream until a spreadable consistency is achieved.
To Assemble
- Place the bottom layer on a serving plate and cover the top with about 1/3 of the frosting. Add the next layer and frost the top and the sides.
- Sprinkle the top with the toasted coconut and pecans. Refrigerate at least half an hour to let set.
Video
Nutrition
Nutritional Disclaimer
Please note that I am not a medical or nutritional professional. I am simply recounting and sharing my own experiences on this blog. Nothing I express here should be taken as medical advice and you should consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. I provide nutritional information for my recipes simply as a courtesy to my readers. It is calculated using MacGourmet software and I remove erythritol from the final carb count and net carb count, as it does not affect my own blood glucose levels. I do my best to be as accurate as possible but you should independently calculate nutritional information on your own before relying on them. I expressly disclaim any and all liability of any kind with respect to any act or omission wholly or in part in reliance on anything contained in this website.
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My batter for the Italian cake is thick like cookie dough. What did I do wrong?
Without you telling me more, I have no idea. Did you use all the same ingredients as I did?
Hi Carolyn,
The cake is in the oven, I’m praying because I had the same problem as another person that the cake batter was not like batter but really thick. I followed the recipe and measurements etc. I added some more milk because no more cream left. The batter did become softer and more spreadable but I’m worried. What do you think could have gone wrong? Or is the batter not like conventional flour cake batter? Thank you! I’m going to try the Taco Pie tonight! Sounds wonderful!!
Low carb batter is NEVER like conventional batter. It should be spreadable, though. Not pourable at all. Hope that helps, let me know how it turns out.
Does it matter whether it is salted or unsalted butter?
Most people would say unsalted. I have a high tolerance for salt and I prefer it salted, even in my sweet recipes. So really it’s up to you.
I used salted for both the cake and the frosting the first time, but the next time I used salted for the cake and unsalted for the frosting and it was AMAZING.
This cake turned out awesome. We used it as a wedding cake for our daughter.Made a 3 tier cake.
This is the first time I’ve ever bothered to comment on a blog. This recipe popped up in my Pinterest feed a while back. I saved it thinking “yeah whatever” because, you see, I had pretty much given up on finding any keto desserts that actually taste good. But lately I’ve been noticing recipes using Swerve which I had never tried. So given that I ADORE Italian cream cake, I thought I’d give this a try. And it was better than you-know-what! I will be trying others of your recipes going forward. Since Swerve is so expensive, I might have to pace myself though! Thank you so much, and keep up the fantastic work.
Candace, I am honoured that you would take the time to comment on my blog for the first one. And that everything turned out so well! Thanks so much.
This is fantastic!!! My family loves it, even those who aren’t low carb. This has been a favorite of mine since I was a little girl so having a delicious low carb option to enjoy is so wonderful.
I have everything that this recipe calls for but the powdered sugar! Did I read one time that you could put sugar in a blender and make powdered sugar!?can I do the same thing with this srevia?
No, this won’t work with stevia.
I made this cake for the second time because my husband requested it. He said that this was the best low carb cake he’s ever had. I would have to agree with him. I didn’t have any pecans so I used walnuts instead and it tasted great. Thanks for a keeper recipe, Carolyn!
WE loved it too and walnuts would be delicious!
I love you for having posted this recipe! Seriously, I was going to email you directly to lobby on its behalf!
(I’m hosting an Italian-themed birthday party for my women’s group tomorrow night. This cake will be the star of the show—fingers crossed—and I promise to give you {almost} all the credit. ????)
Happy Mother’s Day! ????
OMG, I’m so happy to find this recipe! I was just about to search your website to find a cake recipe I could adapt to make a low carb Italian cream cake. So imagine my delight to find you have one already! Amazing! This was my favorite cake when I lived in Texas and wanted to make myself a birthday cake. Can’t wait to try it!
I added up the amount of carbs in the swerve granulated and the confectioners per teaspoons and got 336 carbs with both sugars in the cake and that isn’t the carbs in the rest of the ingredients, what am I not seeing or what am I doing wrong. I really want to make this cake and have all of the ingredients but how much is a serving? How many carbs per slice. Thanks
Please understand that while erythritol technically has carbs, they have zero impact on blood sugar. I state this very clearly in my nutritional disclaimer, and that I do not count them at all as carbs. Since I actually test my blood sugar, I know this to be true. So the carb counts stand as written. Erythritol is the ONLY sugar alcohol that can be discounted like this.
Will I ever learn to bake the low carb way? I am a gourmet baker with flour and sugar, but am not doing so well with keto recipes.I have noticed that my cakes get too brown and too done when I bake at the recommended temperature. I have an oven thermometer and it registered exactly 325. I set the timer for 30 minutes–5 minutes less than the recommended 35-40 minutes. It is browner than it needs to be but still is a medium brown. My cake tastes good, but it pretty dry. I am assumiing it will get moister in a day or two. The Kentucky butter cake had a perfect texture when I used Splenda. The zucchini cake had a perfect texture with half erythritol and half Splenda. The Italian cream cake has a very dry texture and I used 1/2 Splenda and 1/2 erythritol, since I don’t have Swerve. I used four large eggs, but they seemed smaller than some large eggs. Could that have made a difference in the texture? I almost added another egg, but wanted to stick to the recipe on my first try. Any suggestions appreciated. I may need to order Swerve, but it seems very expensive.
It should absolutely not be dry. This is an overly moist cake, if anything. If you used Splenda, that may be part of it. And you should follow the recipe as written, even accounting for egg size.
Swerve is expensive, but I have found it to be the best for doing anything Keto or low carb. I purchase it from Amazon, and now only use sugar free syrups in my coffee, so I hardly use any swerve unless I am baking sweets! I think it tastes the most like true sugar, but we are all different. I have a tough time purchasing pricy ingredients, as my rent is 4 months due, but I have swerve. Go figure? I know I like to cook, and attempt to bake, though I have never been that good at it, I can watch cookies burn through the glass window of the stove, GAH! My advice is to purchase a 12oz package of swerve, about $8.99 on Amazon, and I have Prime, so I get free shipping. It is still a lot of money, but if you are going to do that, splurge and get the powdered also. It works the best for frostings! I can’t believe there is a low carb recipe for an Italian Crème Cake. I never knew I liked it until my niece bought one for my mom’s birthday about 15 years ago, and not I have a new favorite cake! I will be getting some coconut most likely when I go to the grocery tomorrow, so I will attempt to create this tomorrow. My biggest issue will be eating the whole thing in 2 days! Yikes. Thanks again Carolyn for this recipe. I will let you know how it turns out.
Shawn.
I followed this recipe exactly as written and it is dry and crumbly. It has an ok flavor. I would not make again as it calls for expensive ingredients and I feel like I wasted them.
Did you follow the recipe exactly as written? Because this is not a dry crumbly cake. You may have mismeasured something, or perhaps you used dark cake pans and didn’t account for that (they tend to overcook things). You can see from the comments that this is a recipe most people love.
Ok for this recipe I soaked my sugar free coconut flakes in enough silk coconut/almond milk to cover the flakes. And I let this set for a bit while I prepared everything else. Probably not quite 1/2 cup. This will rehydrate the flakes and make them moist just like most sugar coconut is. Then instead of adding it to the dry ingredients I added it to the wet ingredients before combining the wet and dry together. It will change the carb count a bit but not much. Mine were I thought the perfect moist and I got rave reviews from my church group when I took them. I am also doing mine as cup cakes. It produces about 24 cup cakes and I bake for about 20 minutes but will add another 5 minutes if they don’t look quite brown enough…so I watch them pretty closely. I also use a silicone cupcake pan. They have to cool for a bit to pop out in one piece but this is my new favorite keto sweet.
Hi,
In the cake you have heavy cream. Is this heavy whipping cream or something else?
Thank you,
Dunia
Heavy whipping cream. They are essentially the same thing.
I look forward to your new recipe posts. Thank you Carolyn!
Hi there,
Was wondering if I used Splenda granulated in the cake in which I know will have 1/2 sugar do you think it will be fine?
I have enough powdered Swerve to put into the frosting. just trying to use what I have right now. Cant wait to make this.
Thank you!
Dunia
I honestly can’t guarantee the results but it’s worth a try.
This cake looks amazing and can’t wait to make it. I’ll keep you posted on how it turns out with Splenda although I usually only bake with swerve.
Thanks so much for your quick response!
Would this recipe make 24 cupcakes?
No, probably more like 16.
What is baking time for cupcakes?
The cake is delicious. I made it in 3 8×8 square pans to make a 3 layer cake but I wouldn’t recommend doing that – the layers were a little dry and thin. My trouble was that the frosting turned out salty. I always use less sugar in frosting recipes because I hate sweet frosting, but the salted butter and tangy salty cream cheese made a salty frosting. Yuck! Next time I will use a different frosting that I can lower the sugar in.
Also – How on earth do you fold in the egg whites to the batter? It was a really heavy thick batter. The egg whites lightened it a little bit but not enough that it seemed to warrant a whole extra step of whipping them.
Im thinking of using this recipe to make muffins 🙂 I love the pecans and coconut in the batter! Delightful.
You shouldn’t use salted butter in a frosting. And as for the cake, it shouldn’t be too thick to fold in egg whites so something went wrong on your end.
Planning on making this cake this afternoon and just want to confirm that the butter called for in your desert recipes is always unsalted.
Truth be told, I use salted but I have a very high tolerance for salt. Some folks don’t so I generally recommend unsalted.